


Kicking Up Ashes

by Penstills



Series: running in my bloodstream [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Brotherly Love, Canonical Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Secrets, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Grief/Mourning, Mako-centric, Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 01, like she's technically been redeemed for 30 plus years but shhh roll with me here, me? back at it again with the nonsensical au content? you know it, mysterious family history, old woman azula! child mako and bolin!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29985810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penstills/pseuds/Penstills
Summary: This is the story of how Mako and Bolin come to live with their Grandmother Azula, and what happens afterwards. (A chronicle of family secrets, incurably cheerful little brothers, grief, smashing ceramic pots, everything maybe being okay, and one mysterious Grandmother, as told by Mako.)
Relationships: Azula & Bolin (Avatar), Azula & Mako (Avatar), Bolin & Mako (Avatar)
Series: running in my bloodstream [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923835
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Kicking Up Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> *rollerskates in, holding a large soda and a candy cigarette* you'll never believe the year i had! anyways folks, welcome back to the "azula is mako and bolin's maternal grandmother au" that absolutely no one asked for (but that you wonderful people seem to like.) I'm not entirely happy with my outline for this fic, but I do I have a general plan, so I intend to see this pet project of mine to the end. shoutout to Bolin for being based off my own younger brother, and here's to hoping you folks enjoy being inside the mind of a young Mako.
> 
> *this takes only a few hours after 'tiny fires everywhere' and most of the in-between period is explained in the first few lines so. yuh.
> 
> *cw: descriptions of melting
> 
> *enjoy!

**Spring of 161 AG**

Their room on the steamer that will take them from the docks of Republic City to the port in Fire Fountain City is small and white. Mako doesn’t pay much attention to anything else besides the blinding whiteness of the little room’s walls and sheets. Bolin demands to be lifted on Zula’s shoulders (much to Mako’s mortification) so that he can look through the round port window, and let out sounds of awe in reaction to the waves only feet away from them. 

Zula, for her part, sets their combined bags at the foot of the bunk bed and unfolds a browned map from her purse. She lays it flat on the tightly tucked sheets, and smooths the creases with steady fingers. Then, she crooks those same fingers at them, and tells them to, “Look.”

Together, Bolin and Mako look. One of her white nailed fingers is touching the edge of the Earth Kingdom, a bay that Mako recognizes as Republic City. “We are here…” she says, and as if to emphasize her point, Bolin scrambles onto the bed, peering at the spot like it will reveal the secrets of the city to him. 

Smiling, Zula continues. “From here, we are going to take this route…” She traces a straight line from Republic City to a larger island near the coast of the Fire Nation Capital, “...to the dock in Fire Fountain. From the dock in Fire Fountain, we will make our way to an aeroship…” Bolin’s squeal of delight elicits a laugh from her, “...which will drop us into the Black Cliff region. From there, it’s a matter of walking to Hai’bi.” 

Mako’s eyebrows furrow. “Is that where you live? Hai’bi?” He hasn’t heard of any town with that name, so it must not be very big or important. 

Zula nods. “You wouldn’t have learned of it in your geography classes. It’s not on most maps.” 

Mako has never taken a geography class in his life, and furthermore he has more questions, so he climbs onto the bed next to Bolin. “Why can’t we take an aeroship all the way there? Why do we have to be…” he gestures to the cabin, “here?”

His Grandmother’s smile is slightly pleased. Mako doesn’t know why. “The Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation are quite picky about aeroship travel directly from one territory to the next. Besides, it’s not everyday you’ll travel such a large distance.” 

Mako wants to retort that they shouldn't be traveling at all--that Republic City is perfectly good for him and Bolin to stay within, with or without her. He doesn’t want to make his home in some backwards fishing village. 

(Despite his newfound relationship with Zula, he still does not fully trust the woman. Her eyes are too hawkish for that to change anytime soon.)

Mako doesn’t say all that. He’s cognizant of the fact that he and Bo must live with this stranger, so in the terse parting words of Ms. Chan, he really ought to “keep his tongue still.” 

He declines his head in a nod of understanding. 

Bo has no such qualms. He flops onto the bed, spreading his arms across the sheets and nearly ripping the old map in the process. “It’s like an adventure!” He exclaims, pumping his fist in the air. He repeats the word several times, like he can’t get enough of the way it sounds. Once he’s done with that, he speaks to the room at large; “There’s a fountain in the fire fountain city, did you know that? And I heard that the Black Cliffs are haunted! By ghosts!” 

Mako exchanges a look with Zula. “Who told you all that?”

“People,” Bo replies, like that explains anything. Mako, still aware of Zula’s eyes on him as she folds up the map and begins to unpack clothing, flops down next to his brother, capturing him in a headlock. “Bo, you little nerd…” He laughs at Bolin’s offended look. “The ghosts are going to get you, and once they do, they’re gonna throw you off the side of the cliffs. That’s what happens to nerds.” 

Bolin’s face crumples. “You’re mean...” he whines, just before his head buts into the older boy’s nose. Mako falls to the cabin floor with a groan, and the delighted giggling above him makes him wonder if the trip won’t be overtly horrible. As long as he has Bolin, maybe everything can be okay. 

(Maybe he can make this work.)

* * *

Mako buries his head further into _The Adventures of Detective Dosu: Volume 3_ gritting his teeth at his brother’s improvisational song from the bunk below him. 

“Shut up” he groans, snapping his book closed. “Please shut up” is what he politely amends, dangling his head to the bunk below. Bolin blinks up at him from where his hands fidget with a stuffed koala-bear. Zula is somewhere above deck, talking to the other passengers perhaps, and that has left them in this tiny, _tiny_ room. 

“You don't like my song?” Bolin asks, like it isn’t startlingly obvious. Mako’s unimpressed stare is his only answer.

Bolin nods seriously, though the smile stretching across his cheeks gives him away. “Nananana Lalalala Sahsahsahsah…” he begins again, shaking the stuffed toy to this imagined rhythm. Mako stretches his hands out, prepared to strangle his brother like a particularly vicious spider-bat. Bolin shrieks and pushes his hands away, laughter loud and shrill in the emptiness of the cabin. 

It brings a smile to Mako's face, one which he doesn't bother to try and hide. 

* * *

  
  


Zula is holding Bolin’s little hand in her own as Mako trails after them. On the deck of the ship, the wind ruffles his hair, and he leans over the railing, watching the white foamed sea pass below. He’s almost hypnotized by the rolling and tossing of the waves, unconsciously pressing his body downwards in an attempt to study them more.

He’s reeled back in by the collar of his shirt, and raises his eyes to meet the amused yellow of his grandmother. “Never seen the sea before?” She asks, and Mako shakes his head. Save for his few glimpses of Republic City bay, he’s never properly observed the ocean; as vast and blue as it is.

Bolin is visible to him on the other side of her body, watching the other passengers on the deck with wide eyes. Zula shifts, and Bolin vanishes from his sight.

Zula lays a hand on the railing. She glimpses at the boys on either side of her, and she clears her throat. “When I was young…” she starts, looking everywhere on Mako’s face but his eyes, “I sailed quite often.”

Mako, intrigued, peers up at her. “Really?” He asks, trying to picture the stern old woman as anything _but_ a stern old woman. 

She nods. “I set sail from the Capital City, and the ship I was on took me across the nations. I was a soldier, of sorts, so I fought many battles.”

A smile creeps up Mako’s cheeks from the lively look in the woman’s eyes, so unlike her stern demeanor. “Did you ever lose?” 

With a gleaming eye and newly straightened shoulders, Zula replies, “None that mattered.”

Mako laughs, and the old woman besides him tampers down her own smile.

* * *

_"Why didn't you help us, Mako?" Mom and Dad cry, skin melting from bone as they tower above him. "We love you! Why don't you love us?" And Mako grips his hair with slick fingers, pulls, can't make himself close his eyes as they melt like wax figures in front of him. As they melt, Mom and Dad become Mrs. Chan and the social workers and the metalbenders and the other children and even Bo, who laugh at him and say, "Why can't you love us, Mako? Why don't you?"_

_"Don't you love? Why didn't you help them?" The pearls are rolling around him, expanding, like beautiful, familiar boulders about to flatten him. Her necklace string burns on the ground below him._

_I don't know, he wants to scream. I don't know. Please, I don't -_

* * *

He awakens with a start, fire burning the inside of his eyelids. In the dim of the cabin, the only sounds are his harsh breaths and Bolin's soft snores. Mako reorients himself by staring at the underside of the bed above him, counting the spaces where the mattress hangs out from the bars. 

When he turns himself onto his side, he notices that Zula's futon, laid carefully below the cabin window, is bare. The old woman is nowhere to be seen. 

For a moment he considers seeking her out. But for what? To tell her of his disturbing dreams? To be placated by saccharine words that lacked any substance? Or worse, to be rebuked by the old woman? No, no. Zula didn't seem the type to do such a thing, but Mako wouldn't take the chance. He couldn't.

It was better for Mako to lay and stare at the bed above him, until blue morning light slanted through the cabin window, and he had wandered his way back into a fitful sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> what a ride, huh folks? all jokes aside, I have a lot I want to do with this fic, but I'm very simply not a 5k a chapter type of person. This first section of the fic (the journey from republic city, from boat to aeroship to walk) encompasses the first two chapters of this. my writing style has changed a bit since i wrote the first installment of running in my bloodstream, but I hope going from that to this isn't too much of a terrible shock. I feel like how I'm thinking about these characters, mako and bolin and azula, is still fairly similar to the first time so :) here's to hoping the characterization ain't too wack. this chapter is a bit sparce, mainly because i was just trying to set everything up, but whooo boy am i about to worldbuild my ass off. 
> 
> *i hope you enjoyed! any comments, critiques, editing mistakes, or elsewise that you noticed can be deposited below!


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